mad_muses: ... in which Sam's gifts come back.

I remembered each flash
as time began to blur
Like a startling sign
that fate had finally found me
-Linkin' Park "New Divide"


He had been keeping it a secret. Dean didn't like secrets but Sam knew he couldn't tell Dean. Dean would worry. Dean always worried and this was not a good thing for Dean to worry about. It would bring back bad memories and he would get sad and Sam couldn't make Dean sad. He hated making Dean sad.

But his head was hurting again, so he hid in the bathroom and pretended to take a shower. It was running, but he wasn't in it. Instead he was sitting between the toilet and sink with his head in his hands, trying to get the pain to stop.

And the pictures. He scrunched his eyes shut and there were people there and they were hurting and he didn't know who they were or what was happening. But they hurt and it made him hurt to the point where he wants to stab out his eyeballs so he didn't have to see anymore.

First they were in his dreams. He remembered how they had started like that before and now it was again. He curled up into Dean on those nights. Dean always made the bad things go away. But these weren't like his bad dreams Pain. Hurt. Fire. Smoke. DEAN! They were real and he knew it somewhere which made them hurt more.

Then they started to happen when he was awake. So far they happened when Dean and Alec were gone. He didn't know what to do, and curled up on Dean's bed and clung to his pillow... if he could make it. And sometimes he knew what the dreams were and he could sneak away and try to help. Dean and Alec would be mad if they knew he was on his own helping people. But if he helped them the pain went away.

These pictures though came when Dean was just finishing his shower. Sam couldn't get into the room fast enough that the steam and the smell of Dean's body wash was still in the air. The sound of the water hid his whimpers as he rocked back and forth, trying not to see the pictures.

A little girl. A demon was in her. She was killing people. There was a preacher. He was a good man but she slit his throat and then started to use his blood like finger paints. Pretty pictures of things he remembered from the books in Bobby's place that smelt like magic and leather. She then smiled and the pictures went away.

He had lost track of how long he was in the bathroom, curled up. He wanted them to go away. They hurt and reminded him of how he had become a demon and it wasn't fair and he was dead and they should be gone and not here where it will make Dean sad and angry and...

Another stab of pain had Sam curled up tighter, making pitiful whimpering noises and just wanting it to stop. To go away. To be a normal boy again and not a demon or a freak. He wanted to be Sammy again. Not this.

It hurt too much.